June 17, 2013 by Vinnie Leduc
Man of Steel, the close runner-up on our list of most anticipated movies of the year, flew sky-high and landed on a couple of records lists at the domestic box office over Father’s Day weekend. Produced by Christopher Nolan and directed by Zack Snyder, the Superman reboot opened to triple-digit millions, good for both the highest June launch ever (just beating Toy Story 3‘s $110 million) and the second-highest ever for a non-sequel (way short of The Hunger Games‘ $155 million), which is great news for the team behind The Dark Knight trilogy. Their new comic-book franchise’s inception at the box office is also the second biggest of the year, only behind that of Iron Man 3, itself the second highest ever of all time.
The super debut of Man of Steel pushed surprise reigning champ The Purge way down into fifth place. Grabbing the runner-up spot was the opening of another movie on our list of most anticipated, ensemble comedy This is The End. Starring many of this generation’s popular comedians as themselves during an apocalypse, This is The End nearly doubled up on third-place Now You See Me, the caper flick that continues to be summer’s surprise hit in its third weekend. Fourth place went to action blockbuster sequel Fast & Furious 6, which recently drifted across the $200 million mark and is speeding toward the next box office milestone.
The upcoming weekend adds two more new major releases and challengers: Apocalyptic adaptation World War Z, which is on our list of the year’s most anticipated movies, and Pixar prequel Monsters University.
Here are the numbers for the top five over the weekend via BOM:
- Man of Steel — Weekend Gross: $116.6 million — Total Gross: $128.7 million (new)
- This is The End — Weekend Gross: $20.7 million — Total Gross: $33.0 million (new)
- Now You See Me — Weekend Gross: $11.0 million — Total Gross: $80.7 million (#3 last week)
- Fast & Furious 6 — Weekend Gross: $9.6 million — Total Gross: $219.7 million (#2 last week)
- The Purge — Weekend Gross: $8.3 million — Total Gross: $52.0 million (#1 last week)
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